When artifice is stripped from theatre, theatre virtually becomes life.

Sex is no longer unctuous and sumptuous, it is sloppy and crude.

Love is no longer object, but subject, sentencing us to the jail of banality.

War is no longer epic, but is revealed as the hell it truly is, and worse.

It takes on a life of its own, writes its own scenes, strays from the plot.

Prosperity is shown to be the height of abnormality; a majority starves

While a few suck substance from the boards and leave them breathless.

When theatre is stripped of artifice, the golden nude actors lie basking,

While the circus that remains, chills our bones and leaves us asking.

Cesenatico 1

I was walking to the Adriatic
But I got lost on purpose

Sidetracked by little wooden boats

A dog rolling in the nets

The smell of fish in early sunset

The lure of Utopia, that is, no place
If I lose my baby will I console myself

With the famed mosaics of Ravenna

My lover is a jealous guardian

He thinks the seepage is my fault

Suspects I let someone else enter

With his defenseless issue inside
He tries to seed me with jealousy

Expects me to quake and confess

I’m in no mood for that kind of play

One sire is more than adequate bycatch

I’m no lascivious shopkeeper

Nor do I comb the sand for shells
Got lost on the way to the Adriatic

Distracted for a time by a cappuccino,
Silly spaghetti Westerns on TV
One fleeting moment of drift, then

Italian speaking cowboys hushed
By the pounding of unborn blood

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BIOGRAPHY

Joanie Hieger Fritz Zosike is a writer, actor, singer, director, producer and theatre arts worker for people of all ages and people of all ages with disabilities. Her work appears in such pubs as At the Edge, Chez Chez, Helicon Nine, Heresies, International Worker, Jewish Daily Forward, La Mia Ink, Maintenant, Ovation, Silver Birch Anthology, Womannews and Zeitriss. She is published in Between Ourselves: Letters Between Mothers and Daughters (Ed. Karen Payne, Houghton Mifflin) and Women in American Theatre (Eds. Helen Krich Chinoy and Linda Walsh Jenkins, Theatre Communications Group). Her chapbook, The Character Poems was published by Chez Chez, and she is poetry editor and contributor at

http://clockwisewise.wordpress.com/2012. A veteran of The Living Theatre, she directs the dada/surrealist company, DADAnewyork and is co-founder and co-director of Action Racket Theatre. Awards and grants include: fellowship from SOUL Sanctuary (a retreat for social justice activists and progressive change agents); grant from Foundation for Jewish Culture (for play, And Then the Heavens Closed); artist residence at Edward F. Albee Foundation “The Barn” (to complete play, Inside); Bronx Council on the Arts Community Action Grant for development of a play, Words from the Melting Pot (a theatre work about immigration, culture and heritage collectively developed with people with disabilities attending Beth Abraham Adult Day Health Care center); and a New York City Department of Cultural Affairs Decentralization Grant (for play, 12 Steps to Murder…a civilized walk). She is presently working on poetry, a science fantasy novel and her fifth full-length play.